Continuing with Athanasius, we come across an outstanding passage from On the Incarnation of the Word wherein Athanasius brilliantly lays out the reason for Christ’s Incarnation.  But for Athanasius, the importance of the Incarnation is of more importance than the mere appearing of God in the person of Christ.  Rather, he sees an indelible link between the manner in which Christ has come (in the flesh), and the work which he accomplishes.

To Athanasius, the assumption of human nature is the means by which the corruption and dissolution which has infected humanity can finally be undone. Through his suffering and death, Christ tastes the annihilating power of sin and death.  Yet because he is at the same time the incorruptible Word of God made manifest in the flesh, the corruption of sin and death which would normally obliterate the human person severed from God is of no permanent effect on him.  By virtue of his justification and “grace” in the resurrection granted to him by the power of the Father, Christ reveals the powers of sin and death to be ultimately vacuous, and in this triumph over the grave, he crushes forever their claim on his brothers, the race of humankind that has been set free by the miracle of God’s Incarnation in the person and work of Christ.

Disappearing Death

Listen to the Track

He, the Mighty One, the Artificer of all,

Himself prepared this body in the virgin as a temple for Himself,

And took it for His very own, as the instrument through which He was known and in which He dwelt.

This He did out of sheer love for us,

So that in His death all might die,

And the law of death thereby be abolished

Because, having fulfilled in His body

That for which it was appointed,

It was thereafter voided of its power for men.

Thus He would make death to disappear from them as utterly as straw from fire.

Thus He would make death to disappear from them as utterly as straw from fire.

Thus, taking a body like our own,

Because all our bodies were liable to the corruption of death,

He surrendered His body to death instead of all,

And offered it to the Father.

This He did that He might turn again to incorruption

Men who had turned back to corruption,

And make them alive through death by the appropriation of His body

And by the grace of His resurrection.

Thus He would make death to disappear from them as utterly as straw from fire.

Thus He would make death to disappear from them as utterly as straw from fire.